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The
Morris Telford archive. Read about Morris's previous
exploits.
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Morris's journey
Day One
Day Two
Day Three
Day Four
Day Five
Day Six
Day Seven |
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| FACTS |
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Name: Morris Telford
Age: 33
DOB: 18/04/70
Occupation:Unemployed
Hobbies: Enlightenment, Philosophy, Bingo
Favourite
book – Ordnance Survey Map of Shropshire 1999 edition
Favourite
foods – Pickled Eggs
Favourite
film – Late For Dinner
Favourite colour – The delicate cyan of the dinnertime sky in
Moreton Say.
Favourite British County – Shropshire
Favourite Place – Moreton Say
Favourite Postal Code Area – TF9
Favourite radio
frequency - 96FM
Favourite sound – The gentle breeze rustling through the leafy
glades of Moreton Say
Favourite Clive – Clive of India
Favourite Iron Bridge - Ironbridge
Favourite adhesive note size – 75 x 75mm
Favourite Vegetable – Anything grown in the fertile soils of
Shropshire
Favourite band – *(shameless plug)
Biggest inspiration – |
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The
more I look at it, the more Shanghai reminds me of Telford. It has
many sides to it, some impressive like the Pearl Tower or Telford
shopping centre; some dark and dangerous like Shanghai docks or
Telford Town Park; and some just plain confusing like the Xin Cho
Temple of Yangpi or that shop in Market Drayton that sells crystals
and little plastic tubs with stones in them.
Lang So Pin only works as my guide five days a week, so I’m on my
own for the next two days. I’m wearing my best walking shoes and
striking out in downtown Shanghai on my own.
I stick out a bit, a vision of pale Shropshire man adrift in unfamiliar
waters, an unfamiliar English bony bit in an Oriental processed
meat sandwich.
Everyone here is shorter than me. I’m not a tall man by Moreton
Say standards. Big Tom from Three Acres farm is seven foot three
inches tall and his wife Big Brenda is even taller, though their
unusual height is most probably a result of a childhood spent working
in the radioactive wastes of Russia.
Their daughter, Big Ethel is rumoured to be taller still, but no
one has seen her since she was suspended from Moreton Say Parish
School for using gravestones as Frisbees. She was only seven.
I met one young woman today who did speak very good English. Her
name was Julie. She told me she speaks nine different languages;
I had to take her word for it. Julie looks like an oriental version
of Bridget Fonda, she has that slightly psychotic twinkle in her
eye that suggests she knows seventy different ways to kill a man.
Julie works at an advertising agency and seemed very keen on talking
to me about my unusual life’s work, so we had lunch together.
She refused to let me pay, which was nice, especially since all
my money is in my left shoe and smells a bit.
It turns out that Julie is looking for a western face to feature
in a new advertising campaign in Shanghai. Apparently she is trying
to launch a new brand of deodorant and her company wants to do a
billboard ad showing a well-groomed English gentleman as a logo
for the new body spray.
The product is called "Sing-So-Min" and is specifically aimed at
workers in busy and cramped offices that have to sit in close proximity
with each other. I agreed to do a photo shoot for her tomorrow,
she is paying me and I thought a little free publicity for my face
might help me interest people in my message.
I’m doing
a photo shoot for a Chinese advertising agency today. I am the new
face of "Sing-So-Min" deodorant.
They let me try the product, it comes in a brilliant container. It’s
an aerosol can, but it’s semi-transparent so you can see the fluid
inside as it goes down. It has a nozzle that looks like a chrome power
shower head, only much smaller and the words "Sing-So-Min" in holographic
writing around the outside. As you turn the can in your hands the
letters seem to stay in the same place, while the background shifts
and sparkles, it’s a triumph of design.
Unfortunately the spray makes you smells like a dead badger. I pointed
this out to the people taking the photos and they just gave me the
thumbs up. I could see they didn’t understand me, so I tried to mime
it to them.
My visualisation of a badger dying was a little too graphic and before
I knew it, the paramedics had been called, because they thought I
was having a seizure.
Fortunately, Julie turned up and I was able to explain. I had to tell
Julie that I couldn’t do the photo shoot anymore. I refuse to endorse
anything I have reservations about. She tried to talk me out of it
and offered me money, free products and something called "Han-iti-pan",
which I think is either a small fish or a moped, but I refused them
all.
I am if nothing else, a man of principle.
I explained to her that the pure waters of Morris could not be contaminated
with the raw sewage of commercialism, and under no circumstances would
I ever give my support to anything I did not believe in.
She eventually took no for an answer, my face will not now be appearing
on billboards throughout the Eastern hemisphere. I did tell Julie
that if she ever wants someone to endorse any good quality stationary,
an oriental version of 'Countdown' or a new Bingo Hall then she should
give me a call. I gave her my number.
She didn’t thank me. She seemed quite annoyed that I had backed out
of our arrangement. It was probably something to do with the team
of make-up artists, photographers and men in suits that had turned
up to take pictures of me.
I left when she started shouting abuse at me. For someone that knows
nine different languages, her choice of insults were quite pedestrian.
Lang is
back with me today, helping me decipher Shanghai.
I asked him what he did at the weekend and he said, "I practiced the
Quivering Tiger". The way he said it made me not want to ask any more
about how or why the tiger was quivering, so I just said, "Oh that’s
nice" and left it at that.
Today we are in a place called Shanghai Xintiandi. Like so much of
Shanghai it consists of old buildings that have been renovated.
I asked Lang why they don’t just knock them down and build new buildings
instead, so he took me over to a central plaza and showed me a big
plaque
– it said in several languages -
"Yesterday meets tomorrow in Shanghai today."
He said this means that keeping in touch with their history is a very
important thing to the Chinese and it would be disrespectful to tear
down the antique walls and tiles to replace them with plastic and
concrete.
The plaque is in an area called the Shikumen buildings that used to
be a residential neighbourhood dating back 300 years. The houses were
built in all manner of styles because 19th century Shanghai was such
a hotpot of different cultures.
The developers didn’t want to lose that diversity, so they kept the
exteriors and refitted all the insides with modern appliances. So
basically it’s like one enormous barn conversion.
Mr and Mrs Alstonefield, a lovely couple who both looked a bit like
Tom Baker, once converted a barn just outside Moreton Say. It started
out as a two-bedroom holiday home with a dining room, kitchen, living
room and modern bathroom.
But Mr and Mrs Alstonefield decided they wanted an extra bedroom and
took the unusual step of developing the property downwards and added
a large bedroom in a basement they had tunnelled out of the base rock.
This led them to discover a network of caves under their property
and they expanded some more.
After 11 years of working on the same barn conversion they now have
19 bedrooms, five bathrooms, three kitchens, 2 living areas, a conference
room, a games room, an olympic sized swimming pool, a hydroponics
area, a cinema, a recording studio and a little room full of Mrs Alstonefields
collection of used envelopes.
They liked the barn so much they moved in and now on the odd occasion
you do see them, their skin is milky white, almost transparent and
they wear large, black sunglasses.
My guide
tells me Tony Blair was in Shanghai a few days ago; I suspect he may
be trying to follow me.
Tony is wanting to talk to the Chinese government about a new anti-subversion
law they want to bring in that is seen as restricting free speech.
Free speech is very important to me. I demand my right to tell the
world about Shropshire, so I hope they decide the new law is a bad
idea.
If you are reading this Tony, feel free to contact me for any pointers
on how to maintain the principles of free speech. I know you’ve got
my number, I’ve left it with your office on 24 separate occasions.
I also spent some time today in an ornamental garden. It was very
relaxing and quite beautiful - the attention to detail, the topiary,
the delicate blooms and the obvious love and care that had gone into
the garden was quite outstanding.
Not as impressive as Moreton Say the year it tried to win the ‘Villages
In Bloom’ competition, but lovely nonetheless.
I’ll never forget the sight of Old Mr Wandsworth’s hedge that year,
it was twenty foot high and he fashioned it into the shape of Moby
Dick, with roses spouting out the airhole and a tail rimmed with violets
to represent the seaspray running off the giant of the deep. He even
built a crows nest on top of a nearby telegraph pole.
Mr Wandsworth dressed up as Captain Ahab and (confusing Treasure Island
with Moby Dick) would sit on top of his telegraph pole shouting "Ooo-aaarr
Jim Lad" at passers by. It was truly magnificent.
The only thing that let it all down was the fact that Mr Wandsworth
got a little too much into character and tried to harpoon one of the
Villages in Bloom judges.
Walking
around Shanghai today, people started reacting oddly to me - They
would point, and a few asked for my autograph.
Now at first I thought this was normal behaviour towards a visiting
envoy from an important English county. Then I noticed the things
that were going on along with the pointing, like the laughing, and
the holding of noses, and wafting of hands.
Lang directed my attention to a billboard hanging above us from the
side of one of the larger buildings. It was a fifty-foot high photo
of me surrounded by some Chinese office workers looking disgusted.
At the bottom of the image were enormous orange letters. Lang translated
them for me. They said - "Do you work with a malodorous colleague?
Don’t smell like dead animal, use Sing-So-Min for freshness and confidence."
I am now known throughout Shanghai as the man who smells like a dead
animal. It’s not really the image I was going for, and they used my
photos even after I expressed my misgivings about Sing-So-Min.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have signed all those forms that Julie gave me.
With the
help of my guide, translator and friend, I was able to give a small
speech in one of Shanghai’s busy market squares today.
I had to speak slowly so Lang could keep up. He had some difficulty
in translating the odd phrase, "damping the fires of evil with my
hose of truth" proved particularly confusing for him, and a few of
my audience tried to set fire to me with their cigarette lighters,
so I think they missed the point along there somewhere.
The crowd got a bit ugly towards the end of my speech and Lang made
me leave. Apparently the regime in China doesn’t take too kindly to
free expression, but I explained to Lang that I am not afraid to face
the authorities.
Sometimes you have to awaken the sleeping dragon to find out what
it really thinks. Maybe the Chinese government are just ready for
a few fresh ideas and no one has had the courage to tell them about
places like Shropshire where everything works really well and everyone
is happy.
After the potential violence, my guide Lang has offered to show me
a few of the hidden secrets of hand-to-hand combat. I wanted an early
night and a nice hot bath so I arranged for him to start my instruction
tomorrow.
Lang is
trying to teach me some Chinese Martial arts today.
I did tell him that I had some rudimentary skills in the deadly art
of Kung-Fu; I neglected to tell him that this knowledge consisted
mostly of watching Hong Kong Phooey after school every Wednesday.
All the things that Lang-So-Pin is teaching me seem to have animalistic
names.
Apparently The Crane, The Crouching Beetle, The Preying Mantis, The
Bobbing Vole, The Wobbling Cobra, The Dancing Pony and The Burrowing
Terrapin are all going to become part of my deadly repertoire.
Despite his portly outward appearance, Lang is surprisingly nimble.
I saw him do a back-flip over a small fence, a high kick that knocked
the glass from a streetlight, and he folded a small piece of card
into a little swan whose wings flap when you pull its legs.
I was very impressed.
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